Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Oh, One More Thing...

Still in the office, but about ready to depart, and thought I'd share a nifty tidbit from David Horowitz, obtained via the intrepid Power Line. Scott Johnson is musing on the New York Times' clearly treasonous behavior in trumpeting national secrets obtained from apparently still mostly-anonymous sources connected with the National Security Agency (NSA) regarding the inaptly termed "domestic wiretap" situation. En route, Johnson remembers a story from Horowitz that, unbelievably, may provide cover for these cynical bastards:

In his autobiography Radical Son, former Ramparts editor David Horowitz recounts an incident involving the magazine's 1972 receipt of a draft article by a pseudonymous National Security Agency employee. Horowitz characterizes his involvement in the publication of the article in Ramparts as "the most shameful or humiliating thing I ever did."

In the article, the NSA employee revealed that the agency had cracked the Soviet intelligence code and could read Soviet electronic communications at will. Deliberating over whether publication of the article might subject the magazine editors to prosecution under the espionage laws, Horowitz consulted prominent Harvard law professor Charles Nesson. (Nesson denies recollection of the conversation recounted by Horowitz.) Nesson was then working as a member of Daniel Ellsberg's defense team in connection with the government's prosecution of Ellsberg for removing copies of the Pentagon Papers and turning them over to the Times -- the incident underlying the Pentagon Papers case itself. Horowitz relates that Nesson advised him that publication of the article would violate the law. In addition to providing certain technical guidance, according to Horowitz, Nesson advised:

To make its case in a court of law, the government would have to establish that we had indeed damaged national security. To do so, it would be necessary to reveal more than the government might want the other side to know. In fact, the legal process would force more information to light than the government would want anybody to know. On balance, there was a good chance that we would not be prosecuted. I had just been given advice by a famous constitutional law professor on how to commit treason and get away with it.

Just goes to show you how carefully, how stealthily, and how long the Gramscian left has endeavored to game the American legal system. Nonetheless, to their credit, the Bushies in the Department of Justice (DOJ) are at least going to take a shot at prosecuting the seditionists inside the Federal government and its own intelligence agencies.